Pollsters: 'Everything is terrible'

Polls from major networks, researchers and newspapers agree: America’s in a bad mood.

In just one week, polls found politicians of all stripes are hitting approval numbers with record lows. The president finds himself roughly as popular as a trip to the dentist. The entire Democratic Party gets the thumbs down. Oh, and so does the Republican Party.

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But it doesn’t stop there. Americans are also bummed out about the future in general, especially the economy. Things are so low that even an old favorite, sugar, polled poorly.

Pollsters say it all adds up to a country that feels “everything is terrible,” as one put it, a mood that campaigns should consider as they head into the midterm homestretch, when turnout should be all about enthusiasm — not pessimism.

“With an ‘everything is terrible’ mindset, I’m mostly thinking about how after several years of cantankerous and unproductive lawmaking in Washington, there are very few political figures or institutions who the public trusts anymore,” Scott Clement, The Washington Post’s polling analyst, said in an interview.

When it comes to candidates, voters are also less than thrilled with both incumbents and their challengers.

“What we’re really seeing in an unprecedented way, especially in the key Senate races, is that voters don’t like either of the major candidates,” said Tom Jensen, the director of the left-leaning Public Policy Polling.

Jensen pointed to Arkansas, Louisiana, Alaska and North Carolina, where Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan remains ahead. However, Jensen said it’s not because of high approval ratings.

“Hagan has a -10 approval rating, and usually if you have a -10 approval rating it means you’re doomed,” Jensen said. But, he added, Hagan’s Republican challenger, Thom Tillis, “has a -23 favorability rating, so that race remains very competitive despite Hagan being an unpopular incumbent, because voters really don’t care for her opponent, either.”

The pollster added, “to a much greater extent than usual this year, with voters being so unhappy, ‘so-and-so’ has a negative approval rating, but they still lead for reelection because people like the alternative even less.”

Not even hometown political heroes are spared.

Members of Congress “are no longer at the point where they get the benefit of the doubt from the public,” Clement said. “And the public has seen more and more issues where they’re just not happy about where things are going, and the place they often look to blame is Washington.”

In a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday, the paper found, for the first time in 25 years, that a majority of people disapprove of the job their own Congress member is doing. Clement said while people might have said Congress as a whole is doing a poor job, voters are “not willing to let their own Congress member off the hook anymore.”

But the ill will toward Congress and President Barack Obama is nothing new, said Sarah Dutton, director of surveys for CBS News, which found near-historic lows for each party’s approval rating in its poll last week.

“It’s been low for quite some time,” Dutton said of Congress’ approval rating. “However, it’s now lower than it was in previous midterm elections.”

So what does this mean come November? Across the board, pollsters note that it throws turnout levels into question. Jensen said anger toward their own candidates coupled with anger for the opposition leaves little for voters to get particularly excited about. Two groups that could see an impact, however, are independent voters and third-party candidates.

Jensen said the GOP in particular is seeing growing levels of disenchantment. However, while more Republican voters may be seeing red, Jensen says, that doesn’t mean they’ll vote that way this midterm cycle.

“What Republicans do have to be worried about is [voters] turning to a more conservative, third-party candidate,” the pollster said, pointing to Montana’s 2012 Senate race, which saw a victory for Democrat Sen. Jon Tester. Jensen attributed Tester’s win to a split among GOP voters between the Republican and Libertarian candidates.

Jensen added that the GOP shouldn’t expect to see a gap against Democrats in the 2014 midterms similar to that in the 2010 wave, nor tea party enthusiasm.